Committee of the Whole

Good afternoon, View Royal.

I'd like to call the Committee of the Whole meeting to order for the 9th of May 2023.

And we recognize the Lakwangan speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

This afternoon we will hear from the public during the public participation portion of the agenda, and this evening we'll hear from the public during the public participation and question period portions of the agenda.

Just to go over with counselors and the public.

The whole till approximately uh five or sorry, 5 p.m.

uh today.

And then we will recess to have our um to roll into a council meeting.

And at that council meeting, of course, we'll be doing the consolidated financial statements and the audit report, as well as the final adoption of the bylaws for the budget.

We'll break uh for dinner around 5 45 with a motion to recess and then uh come back after uh a supper recess uh for continuance of the committee of the whole.

Uh any questions about that?

And dinner's being brought in.

So for members of the audience, the council is a safe, respectful, inclusive place.

All members of the audience are asked to refrain from clapping, cheering, or openly expressing your opposing opinions when others are done speaking.

The general rule is to respect each other and uh counsel and uh provide us with the information that we need to make um good decisions.

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At the appropriate time in the agenda, I will then announce the last four digits of your phone number.

Ask you to mute the live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you to not use your speaker phone to ensure sound quality and ask that you unmute by uh your by pressing star six.

To begin, please indicate your name and address for the record.

Speakers will have five minutes each to speak during the public participation and two minutes to ask a question during the question periods.

Uh the meeting will be recorded by participating in this webcast.

You are consenting to being recorded, and the recording will be available on the town's website for future access.

So if you've got budget comments or questions, if you could reserve it to that portion of um the other meeting agenda, that would be appreciated.

Can I have approval a motion to approve uh the agenda including uh i think we have one bit of correspondence um for the moth aerial spray uh program a motion to approve the agenda absolute counselor brown and uh second counselor rogers uh all in favor any opposed none opposed motion carries uh can i get a motion to adopt uh the previous minutes of the committee of the whole meeting held on the 11th of April.

So move move adoption.

Move by councillor rogers, seconded by council mattson.

All in favor?

Oh sorry, I just had a comment.

Um I was wondering if it would be possible a small addition to the 6.1.3 reports of the West Shore RCMP update.

I was wondering if it's possible to reflect in there the conversation we had about increased presence in commercial areas in V Royal as well.

Seeing how we already voted on that, I think we can add that in any way, and we can just uh allow you to ask a question if that satisfies.

Yeah, I just want an accurate uh reflection of the whole conversation in there.

So that would actually take us all agreeing to that late edition.

So um if I can get a seconder or a mover and a seconder for council McKenzie's request.

Move the addition and councillor Rogers seconds, all in favor, and I see none opposed.

So this is the minutes uh for the previous meeting.

I think we had just gone through and put our hands up uh when the question came through.

So just our confirmation for the adoption of minutes, please.

From the previous one, it's had a seconder.

Uh, all in favor of adopting.

Any opposed, none opposed.

Petitions and delegations.

And uh I think we have a the manager's sustainability and assets and support services from the city of Victoria.

Thank you, Mr.

Tuc, for taking the time out this afternoon and sharing your uh experience with us.

Over to you, Steph.

Great.

Uh, thank you, Mayor Tobias.

Um, I just wanted to give a quick introduction to a colleague, um, my colleague, the manager of sustainability and asset management at the city of Victoria.

Rory um established and leads the solid waste engineering and planning function of the city with responsibilities for zero waste and circular economy policies and programs, planning and design of municipal solid waste services and corporate sustainability initiatives.

Rory is the current vice chair of the Capital Region's Solid Waste Advisory Committee and sits on the board of the Coast Waste Management Association.

He was a founding member of the BC Energy Step Code Council that developed BC's regulatory pathway to achieve net zero energy buildings and part of project, part of the project team that led the design of Surrey's Clayton Community Center, the largest passive house facility of its kind.

Rory holds a master's and PhD and in natural resources management from the University of University of British Columbia.

Anyways, I'd like to welcome Rory.

Thank you.

Can you turn your mic on?

Thank you.

There we go.

Apologies.

Learning your technology.

I want to just uh uh thank Leanne Taylor as well for inviting me today.

It's my pleasure.

Um this is a career first is speaking as a municipal staff for another municipality to another municipality, but uh fairly uh comfortable with this procedure.

So um well uh looking forward to presenting some overview of uh the work that City of Victoria has been doing over the last couple of years on deconstruction and reducing the amount of construction waste that's been going to the landfill.

Just look at the screens there for PowerPoint.

But while they're doing that, one of the questions I would like to ask is I understand that uh because of building codes, a lot of old materials, two by fours, etc., aren't can't be used.

I just want you can sort of deal with that when you when appropriate.

Absolutely.

Uh it's up now, but if we get I I have an answer for that one, and then we can uh I can respond to that at the end.

Absolutely happy to do that.

Um so City of Victoria's demolition waste and deconstruction bylaw.

That's what I'm here to present to you today.

Um I intend to go over um a lot of the considerations that we took into account in developing the bylaw.

I'll give a little bit of technical review of what the bylaw consists, but I'm not going to go into those levels of details.

The bylaw is uh in effect right now and it's available online.

Um, I'm just gonna start with the overview of Zero Waste Victoria.

It is a plan that was adopted by council in uh end of 2020.

Uh it's the first ever plan that the city has had at the city level at least for uh directing waste reduction.

Um ultimately what Zero Waste Victoria does is establish a 50% reduction in the amount of landfill material going to Heartland by 2040.

It's a bit of a complex diagram here, but what I like about it is it shows uh the flows of material and where those materials are coming from.

Um we see a roughly equal split, not exactly equal though, between the residential sector in Victoria, the commercial sector, and construction related activities.

So uh obviously, the purpose of today's talk is those construction related activities.

If we can follow that pink ribbon there on the screen, I just want to also describe what is happening.

The other thing I like about this graph is it does highlight that composting and recycling is happening now.

And I think it's important to recognize that BC is a leader with its EPR.

Our performance is often some of the best for recycling across North America, if not in the world.

But there are opportunities to do better.

So there is good strong composting and recycling happening, but opportunities to do more, I'm sure, as many of you are aware.

Um, the amount of an increase in landfill material, specifically coming from the construction sector, uh, is one of the biggest areas of additional landfill material going to Heartland at this time.

Um, you'll see there's a little bit of a blue ribbon from the construction sector in terms of what's being recycled.

I'll talk about that in a future slide, but really that is a lot of the um concrete and aggregate materials from those sites.

They're very heavy.

They are diverted from Heartland.

They're often used as row base, sometimes as landfill cover, that type of thing.

So that's really the bulk of the what's being recycled right now.

Most of the wood is being landfilled that comes out of demolitions and renovations at this point.

Uh, so the salvage opportunities.

So, this graph is showing really just what a typical single family house has in terms of the materials within it.

Um, the purple bars there, uh, concrete and asphalt drywall metals are items that are traditionally recycled right now.

Um, and then those gray bars are areas where there is not much recycling happening or salvage happening.

You'll see lumber roofing, flooring, other wood.

A lot of that material is indeed wood, and a lot of it, not all of it, but certainly a lot of it has the opportunity to be salvaged.

And that that doesn't have the opportunity to be salvaged, there are still recycling operations opportunities where it might be chipped, for example, and sent to Harmac up in the Naimo is one of the avenues for that material.

But there is a lot of salvage value in the old homes that we have across the region, certainly in the city of Victoria.

The considerations that we took into account in developing our approach are listed here.

And I'll talk about the considerations and then I'll also talk about what we sort of uncovered as part of our analysis as part of this work.

So, first of all, the number, the type, and the age of buildings demolished in the city of Victoria at least, by far the most amount of demolition permits we have are for single family homes constructed before 1960 and that are being replaced with new single family homes.

So even though we have the scale of development that we do, you'll see, for example, you know, two lots assembled and many units going on that.

So, for sure, a lot of the additional units are going on top of those demolished homes, but when it comes to the typical replacement, it is still largely dominated by single family homes in the city of Victoria.

The reason, the reason I mentioned 1960 as well is because really up until 1960 and into the 60s a little bit, almost every single single family home or duplex constructed in the city of Victoria, likely here as well, was constructed with old growth Douglas fir as part of its structural components of that building.

Also, often, if not in almost every case, they would have had wood flooring, hardwood flooring throughout those homes as well.

So there is a lot of salvage material in the heart of those homes and in the flooring of those homes.

Costs.

So of course, cost is a consideration.

When we looked at this work, we looked at what the current cost of demolition is and what the cost for deconstruction is.

And the costs are more for deconstruction.

There is no question about that.

And this was never intended, or we were always quite forthcoming and said, yes, there is going to be a cost premium when it comes to deconstruction.

But there are also cost saving opportunities that aren't fully being captured right now.

So one of the biggest opportunities is if the material is donated to a nonprofit somewhere like Habitat for Humanity Restore, there is a income tax credit that can be gained by the homeowner.

So the trick there is just, and I think this is something that the industry still needs to figure out, but um, there are opportunities so long as that transaction is happening between the homeowner with the value of materials.

They retain the materials, for example, they are often getting that as an income tax credit against their income.

And so that can be quite a lot of uh rebate, and it's in many cases, it sort of makes that cost neutral or cost equivalent to what a traditional demolition cost would be.

Um, the cost we see for a normal demolition is a little tricky because it can be site-specific, but it would be roughly $15,000 to $20,000 for a home.

Um, deconstruction might range in the $30,000 to $45,000 price point for the cost of removing that those materials from the building.

The other thing that we looked at uh was market capacity.

So we did a an assessment across Southern Vancouver Island to identify if and where the markets are for the salvaged materials.

Obviously, one of the unintended consequences we wanted to avoid was all this work and effort and cost going into salvaging material and having the material have no end market to go to and ultimately go into the landfill in the end.

So we engaged with a consultant to assess where these markets are.

We found through this there is a robust salvage market in southern Vancouver Island.

Perhaps a bit less so directly in the city of Victoria.

So for example, the Habitat for Humanity restores here.

There's two of them.

They don't have much capacity to take wood.

That being said, the restore, the Mid Island restore in Nanaimo, indicated that they can't keep wood on their shelves and they would send trucks down to Victoria to pick up this material.

So that's the nonprofit side of it.

There's also a growing increase in the for-profit um wholesalers and resalers of this salvage material.

So there has been a lot of land.

There's been some land acquisitions, some entry into this market by lower mainland deconstruction service providers.

There's some acquisitions with major reclaimed wood companies out of Lower Mainland.

It is an industry that's quickly evolving and changing, but there is certainly a robust uh uh private for-profit sector for these uh salvaged materials as well that we see in Vancouver, Southern Vancouver Island, at least, anyway.

So we assess that at least with uh what we would anticipate under the number of demo permits coming out from Victoria that there would be enough sufficient market capacity for these materials if they were to be pulled out of the homes.

Um I'll add there too, it's certainly something that's growing, and I'll talk about this a little bit in this feature.

But that industry evolution is happening very fast in terms of what we're seeing out there here in this region, anyway.

Um, the other consideration was whether the industry was ready for this shift or not.

So that partly speaks to market capacity, but it really speaks into the deconstruction service providers.

So, are there enough people, trades out there who can actually do the deconstruction?

So, who is going to do this work?

Um, we found that yes, indeed, there are um several uh deconstruction focused service providers operating in the space, but a home a home builder uh would typically have the means or um ways to do this type of work as well.

But there are certainly a growing number of deconstruction specific service providers operating in uh Southern Vancouver Island, unbuilders probably being the most familiar to most people.

Um, but there are others as well that we've come across as part of our work.

Industry readiness, um, I would say it's uh there is some split there though, too.

There is, you know, it certainly appears to be a segmented industry where you have those sophisticated home builders, uh developers who understand the value of this and uh whose customers or clients are pushing for this type of you know, more environmentally sensitive approach to development.

Um, but then there are those who uh continue to resist it as well.

So I just want to be open and transparent, is not the industry is not aligned on this, and the information seems to move in awareness uh easily through some portion or segment of the industry, and in others it's a little bit harder to get the information out.

Um, I think that is typical in the home building industry, but just something to be aware of.

The other considerations uh are also just in terms of alignment, we wanted to look at not only what the CRD is uh looking at in terms of their solid waste management regional plan, but also how this aligned with existing city plans.

So the main one there is was the city of Victoria's or is the city of Victoria's housing affordability strategy.

That was really core to this, but also things like heritage preservation and our climate leadership plan.

There was overlap between those various strategies in this work.

So what's the policy approach we ultimately landed on moving out of those considerations?

So staff's recommendation and ultimate direction from council was to introduce our bylaw or approach through phased implementation to build that capacity, recognizing it is a major change to how homes are traditionally demolished right now.

So the phasing was ultimately to start in the case where a single family home is being replaced with a new single family home.

Couple reasons for that.

First of all, that is by far the most common type of scenario that we see.

And as a result of that, it provides a clear market signal.

It's very consistent from year to year as well.

So it provides a clear market signal for somebody who wanted to start up a business in this space.

They'd know they would get likely X 20, 30 amount of projects coming through the market every given year.

We contemplated that against, you know, would we do it for a big multifamily where they might have more money as part of that business case?

But they might be sitting on those properties for two, three, four, five years, not providing that signal for a new entrant to enter into the market and actually take this on as a new business opportunity.

So that's what we weighed up.

We started with single family house replacement.

And then the second phase of it, we move into the case where a single family home is being replaced with a multifamily or any other type of development.

So that comes into effect in 2025.

The other thing, as well, of course, that single family home to single family home is at the very top of the affordability scale.

It is a very premium product.

We're talking about a new single family home in Victoria.

A couple of years ago when we brought this report to council, that was priced on average above $2 million dollars for that new house.

So obviously, the affordability considerations, the squeeze on affordability is not really targeting that sector.

It is a sector who has time it's often a custom build with more flexibility the homeowner is often very involved in that as well and may be able to receive those tax credits so another reason we started our policy approach with that sector um the policy also recommended and is using a fee a refundable fee to motivate the salvage so this was also aligned with our uh housing strategies we didn't want to make it a condition of building permit ultimately if you didn't salvage then you couldn't get a building permit to build we didn't want to necessarily slow down um the additional housing coming into supply um so the fee is set what we think is high enough to motivate people to do the work.

But if you don't make it, you lose the fee, but you don't lose the opportunity.

The city or community doesn't lose the opportunity for more housing on that site.

And so that's why we approached it using a refundable fee.

And then again, the last part, as I mentioned before, we aligned it with what we knew the salvage market and value of materials are.

So really focusing on wood and those high-value wood that's in the building.

So the old growth, structural elements to it in a hardwood flooring, which we know have market in southern Vancouver Island.

So here's the details official name, and there's the number if anybody wants to look it up.

The refundable fee was set at $19,500 to begin with for any house built prior to 1960, again to align with that old growth.

So that that fee was roughly set to be close to the marginal difference between deconstruction and demolition.

We will see as it plays out how many uh projects sacrifice the fee versus those who actually motivates them to salvage.

We're still early days, so we're tracking those numbers.

Um that full um fee is refunded if the wood that is equal or greater than 40 kilograms per square meter above ground floor area, very technical, but essentially it's we looked at uh all the deconstruction that'd been happening in lower mainland and any other information we had on the island as well.

Say what is being salvaged at this point from an actual proper deconstruction.

And our assessment is like we we basically put it the cutoff where if you did put in the time and effort to do a proper deconstruction, you would get the salvage fee back.

So we assumed if everybody did a deconstruction to the scale that's possible with the size of the house, um, that we should hold back no fees.

Our goal is not to hold back any fees.

We don't want to be holding back the fee as a city, we want it to be motivating um avoiding stuff going to landfill.

So if we are holding back fees, we would look at increasing that fee.

We don't want to hold that as a fee by the city.

Um the the salvage wood really there's as I mentioned, it's lumber and flooring.

Um, that is the the specific targets in the bylaw.

And then uh just a an addition here, but I think interesting too is that uh any house that is moved complies with this.

So um there's uh fair fairly healthy health house moving um businesses operating, and and we would want to ensure that continues as much as possible.

We think that's a the best opportunity to avoid this material going to landfill.

It's not possible in every case, though, given site considerations, utilities, trees that they might need to move to move those houses.

But so the timeline, I think it's just good to get a sense of where this came from, how long it takes, and what's coming up.

So uh, as I mentioned, Zero Waste Victoria was adopted in uh just at the end of 2020.

Uh, we started doing a lot of this work actually on deconstruction and the opportunities there before that.

Um, but we had the explicit direction from council to draft a bylaw in the spring of 2021.

The bylaw was then drafted, brought to council, and adopted roughly a year later in spring of 2022.

It came into effect September of 2022.

The first phase of it came to effect, again, where a single family home or duplex is being replaced with a new single family home or duplex.

The first year there is a waiving of the fee, just give a bit more time to the industry to figure it out to try it without any necessarily penalty during the first year, maybe your first deconstruction.

This is the opportunity to learn it.

So there's about six months there.

We just completed the first project under the bylaw as we anticipated.

Most demolitions we don't typically see happening until the spring.

There's not many demolitions happening through the winter, and this year is a unique year, probably even later than we typically see for housing starts.

But we did have the first through, and there's many now in the hopper.

The fee comes into effect this fall, and then in roughly mid-2025, the second phase comes in where if a single-family home is being torn down and replaced with a multifamily building, then this applies as well.

So again, staggered, give the opportunities to learn, give the opportunities to scale new and new people to come into the market for us to learn and to see if we need to react as a city based on what we see happening.

I think this is probably the last or second last slide, but I do want to highlight the supports and resources that the city has put in place for this as well.

One of the most beneficial things I think we did is we we brought together a representation of industry from home builders, from demolition contractors, salvage yards, developers to create a working group who was really tasked with helping us draft the both the approach but also the sort of technical details of the bylaw itself to make sure it's grounded in that sort of industry understanding and their knowledge of what happens on the ground.

So there's roughly 10 industry representatives who met.

I would say at least there's we still have that committee together.

They provide a bit more of an outreach role now, but uh would have met at least a dozen times through this process as we we went through our journey.

Um, there's support, as I mentioned, the fee is waived during the first year of the bylaw.

Again, just to give us that time to learn without any necessarily penalty if you don't get it right the first time.

Uh, we also have in place right now a consultant who's acting as an industry advisor during the first year of the bylaw, a bit more hand holding with uh anybody who wants that type of service.

We've offered that as well.

So um, and we're getting a lot of feedback as well, and you know, additional information that we wouldn't capture on the compliance side, but we want to understand a little bit more what the business case is, uh, where are the gaps, where might we be able to fill that going forward to scale this even further.

Um, the last thing that I think is important to understand um that we put in place is the permit and compliance review by zero waste staff.

So we do the permits and compliance for this under the engineering um department in the city.

So it moves from our planning department into engineering because we have the technical subject matter expertise in our group to be able to do that justification.

I think over time that may go back to the permit staff as they learn it, but uh at this point we have a portion of a resource dedicated to that function.

Okay, lessons and insights.

Um this must be the last one.

Uh so uncovering, we yeah, so we really uncovered a lot of deconstruction service providers that were already in the market through this.

It was really interesting.

We, you know, we do this type of work and uncertain, you know, if it really does have the opportunity to scale or adjust to our regulations.

And what we found, first of all, was there's a lot of service providers that we didn't even know existed that are already doing this work, and then a lot of growth and new service providers entering the market.

Even the last year, um, we've probably I've seen at least two or three new companies that are branding themselves specifically as deconstruction service providers.

So that's been great.

Um, great to see the industry and businesses adapt to this as an opportunity for new business.

Um, it is a rapidly evolving policy space.

There's a lot happening at the CRD right now.

There's a lot of talk at provincial and federal levels on how they can react to the fact that we're understanding just how much construction waste is going to any landfill across Canada.

It is typically the biggest sector contributing to landfill waste.

But also a rapidly evolving business environments.

They're learning, you know, economic tax incentive opportunities, adjusting, adjusting, finding out what the niches are, new businesses coming into this market, finding new salvage opportunities.

So it is really rapidly evolving in that space as well.

It's hard to keep up.

As I mentioned before, there is definitely a segmented home builders uh industry out there.

Some know we're fully on board wanting us to go faster.

Uh some are quite oppositional.

Um, and it's can be tricky to get the accurate information to all those segments.

Um, they have various um information and uh you know, trust or don't trust various information coming out.

So I think that's hopefully where um having an industry consultant providing that advisory service will help.

Uh they have experience in that sector and can be trusted.

Um, but yeah, this still, you know, it's an ongoing challenge we have.

Um, and then just there's ongoing internal and external awareness and education.

Um, I just highlight the internal there.

We, you know, doing new processes, learning those processes, tweaking.

Um, it's a it's a weekly task at this point.

I think it will be smooth after a little while, but we are um certainly in the early stages and and having to be flexible on that.

Um, yeah, I think that's probably it that's the end of my slideshow so thank you very much that's that was excellent uh briefing and i think that answered most of our questions before i go to questions i had a couple of my own one was um what level of deconstruction are you going down to like are nails being pulled out of lumber or what what what level would that be yeah so uh to you mayor um that really is up to we've left it as kind of a performance target so if you get 40 kilograms of wood per square meter of house, it's up to you what you want to do there.

So again, it's meant to be open.

So if you have, if you just have this beautiful hardwood flooring everywhere, you might be able to meet it that way.

Um, so we're not required uh we don't even require deconstruction per se.

So if somebody came up and said, Oh, we've got a great mechanical way to use an excavator, still pull this material out and salvage it, it would be open for that as well.

So it's meant to be performance based and left open to it for on a case-by-case basis.

Yeah.

Great.

My next question was um does your roadmap include like major renovations as well?

I'm not necessarily talking about somebody ripping off stairs, but I notice a lot of bins being out there for uh if you're not going to rebuild the house, the next best thing is to renovate.

Just curious about that.

It's a it's a fantastic question and a tricky one to address from salvage.

I think that I would call that medium term.

It's something we're still looking at and trying to figure out, you know, are there policy options there?

Is it more program education and awareness?

That being said, there is another segment that we are actively looking at which may come forward sooner, which is the commercial sector.

We know a lot of deconstruction happens, but each building's a snowflake to a certain degree in terms of the value materials in there.

Some of those materials can capture hundreds of thousands of dollars on open markets right now.

What we're what we're sort of thinking this very early days are we just don't want anybody to miss up that opportunity.

So we're looking at is there at least $100,000 of value in this building?

Then you should salvage.

That's sort of what we're looking at, and how we might be able to do that.

But that's the sector that we maybe see next in terms of our roadmap or pathway.

Great.

Thank you.

I'll turn to my colleagues.

Let's go with um Councilor Mattson, Mackenzie, and then Lemon, please.

Yeah, back to my uh question at the uh initial question was so I mean you have all those lovely floor joists and two by fours, and my understanding is you can't use any of them.

Um so through the mirror, that's yeah, no, it's a good question.

And and it depends.

So um where it comes in terms of BC's building code, um, you cannot use it as structural as is.

You can have an engineer assess it for its structural value and then put it in that way.

We have seen other jurisdictions across the Pacific Northwest start to amend their building codes so that they would basically give it a graded value, um, that then they could just, you know, be easy for an inspector to say, yep, this is salvaged wood, so it's got this grade.

So, yes, you know, that prescriptive approach to building code.

So it can go through an engineered approach right now.

There are, we know that industry as well, like home builders and those especially interested in deconstruction, are getting their lumber grader certifications and licensing because they see it as an opportunity.

Um, that's something we see as a future opportunity to integrate that into structural.

But the the other thing I'll say there too is the value of these materials are for finishing products right now, for you know, furniture.

It's it's old growth lumber that's very difficult to find right now.

So the markets are certainly um for the big dimensional stuff, it is it is fixtures, furniture, finishings, um, the smaller two by fours, you know, the other stuff that maybe doesn't have that's where we might see more structural in the future.

And I think you know, probably probably need some technology innovation there and ease to get that through the building code to see it more as part of a structure.

Yeah.

Uh thank you for your presentation.

I think it's really timely because uh I've recently read that the CRD is considering banning uh reusable construction waste in landfills.

So um, so my question is I I know you refer to 1960, um, as kind of the date up to that.

Unfortunately, V Royal doesn't have as many older buildings.

I think we have a lot of 70s, 80s.

Um, so in the future, are you going to look beyond will this apply to buildings beyond 1960s, or is it right now really that's the that's the date?

Yeah, through through the mayor.

Um good question.

What what typically we see happen, and it's not always 1960s, but you know, let's say moving out of the 60s is um more laminated materials, glues, particle boards, although that does sometimes, you know, OSB, um more screws, more glue, more nails and wood composite kind of products.

They don't have the same value on the market right now.

Um so the salvage opportunity is not there at this point.

What the recycling opportunities are are, I think open.

I think that's where CRD's work might influence some of that as well.

So I think there's opportunity to recycle some of that material, but whether you can salvage with the same market value that an old growth true dimension 2x8 floor joist has right now.

I mean, there's still maybe some, you know, there might be floor joists still that have value in some of those homes.

But even still, you have sort of you have different, different designs, even joists, you know, changed those sort of beam designs with with different OSB integrated throughout it.

So that's that's kind of the challenge in that vintage of building.

So I think, you know, in all reality, I think it's looking at more recycling, less salvage and reuse, but I think still some opportunities there.

Thank you, Councillor Lemon and then uh Counselor Rogersman.

Thank you.

Thank you for your report Rory.

You're Dr.

Rory here.

Um I just last week I I was at uh the in the at Heartland in the recycling area with you know standard stuff the paint and paint hints and so on and I had a little bit of wood like good wood and uh asked where that went and I was told that it only goes in landfill and I was I was really I I was surprised.

Um yeah, I know you can't speak for the CRD, but when you say that that uh restoring the nymon can't keep up with the demand for wood, would it be feasible, viable to your way of thinking to have you know a wood depot at at in the Heartland recycling area?

Or would that be too labor intensive for you know monitoring the quality of it?

Yeah, through the mayor, um I think that is something being contemplated by the CRD.

Um that uh my understanding is those will be the next steps.

So they've gone through a request uh request for expressions of interest on where the materials that are currently going to landfill might go.

Um what's being proposed is um zero dollars to dispose dispose or take uh salvaged wood to Heartland.

So presumably that means there will be a spot to take salvage wood at no cost that then they will find uh market for or have a taker for.

So um and then lower cost for some of the other materials.

So so I do I am hopeful and and I see the the direction that CRD is moving on this as being uh an opportunity for Heartland to be a bit more of a uh receiving and redirecting transfer facility for more wood products going forward.

So uh question for CRD ultimately though, in the end, but that's uh you know, work closely with their staff and as part of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

So that's that's where the opportunities I'm seeing with their work.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you for coming tonight.

And and it's a very um um timely.

Uh I uh having the opportunity to see what the CRD is uh uh doing for uh the tipping fees and uh in 2024, and I hope everything that they're recommending, staff are recommending goes through because it um uh we need to be on the same parallel with the other um um uh disposal places uh and around the island and as well as um getting all on the same page with the municipalities and the CRD on on uh dealing with wood uh construction waste.

So um uh I think Victoria's been part of the foreground for that.

So um we did you use any other municipalities a model um or did you have to do all this cold?

Um through the mayor.

So so just to clarify the question, so we like, did we look at other precedents for for this type of work?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So we um Vancouver um had a green demolition bylaw, which was one of the first, maybe the first in Canada to do this type of work.

It's interesting though, we see this much more common in US municipalities.

So Portland has been a leader in this uh maybe it was right before the pandemic.

I think it was the last trip I took before we locked down.

I was in Portland to get a sense of their ecosystem there.

Really robust uh system in place for deconstruction in Portland with maybe 20 service providers, salvage yards across throughout the city.

Um that's a good, that was a good model.

We learned some of their insights.

Uh interesting from Vancouver too, we in some ways we learned what might not be necessary.

So you know, there was they had a recycling requirement, so we found that recycling is already happening.

So we sort of did a bit of a leapfrog and went straight to where the opportunities for reuse and the big diversion, which was on really focusing on salvage and less on recycling.

And then I'll the final note I'll say is we actually uh the district of North Vancouver came on as we were doing this as well.

So, and they introduced a bylaw very similar time as ours, and we work very closely with uh municipal staff at the District of North Vancouver.

So outside Vancouver that's got his own charter, they're Victoria and um District of North Vancouver have a very similar bylaw for deconstruction.

Okay, that's good.

Uh once again, the glories of North Vancouver.

So I'm curious on the CRD.

Any other municipalities also interested in taking Victoria's lead on this?

I'm not sure where the current councils are at.

I know previously Sandich was quite interested.

I haven't heard from others at this point.

Township of View Royal, I understand, is has an interest as well by the sounds of it.

There have been some questions from Squai Malt.

I haven't seen any explicit council direction per se, but a lot of questions to their staff on this same issue.

Great, thank you.

Um, why did you send uh set the timeline for 2025 for single family dwellings uh that are going to multifamily um the density or so forth?

A house is a house.

Yeah, so through the mayor, I mean part of that was that was going to be an additional number of houses.

We wanted just to um give a clear signal as well, so that they can factor that into the pro forma as well.

So the signal was it would have been um three years ahead of time, which we thought was not long enough lead time where they can say, okay, it's in the bylaw, we know this is coming, those projects take longer, but then they wouldn't be caught off guard if they had already sort of penciled everything out for their development and then you know told them six months in advance that this is an initial cost.

So just give them a bit longer of the lead time gives us that opportunity to react as well.

So my last question.

Um again, I'll refer to the CRD, which has also got a uh an an in an incentive program for the huge jump in the tipping fees but also uh an additional cost I think $300 if um you people bring in or do you know companies bring in mixed dirty stuff so good good in uh incentives as well you mentioned the um uh the fees you know 19500 and it's you're saying that you you're not that's not your target to collect the fees you want um the motive to be uh deconstruction if those individuals, however, say, well, what the heck?

Um, we're rich, we can afford 20 grand, just give you the money.

What would you do?

They uh has Victoria got a a plan or a a reserve that you would put into um uh these fees or someplace you park them?

I mean that's a it's a good question.

So ultimately the intention is that the fees go back and they would somehow offset the uh amount of waste going to landfill.

So you so that is how we would use the kept fees.

Um I think we would, you know, we're monitoring it very closely as well.

And I think before that would ever get too big, we would probably jump in and recommend to council that those fees be increased to a point where it does start to cause the intention um of the bylaw to to be effective.

So that that is really it is meant to motivate the salvage.

And if it's not, then it it ultimately ought to be increased till it does.

Thank you for coming.

Yeah.

Thank you again, Dr.

Took, for an excellent brief and answering our questions.

And just uh for counsel, you can uh wave your head or make a comment.

But uh we task staff with a uh role to investigate a deconstruction bylaw.

Is that still the intention of council after you've heard the brief to continue to pursue for staff to pursue a deconstruction bylaw?

Counselor Matson.

I mean it sounds really good, but I wonder how many buildings we actually uh knocked down every year to, and I just wondered how much effort staff should put into something if there's not a lot of buildings being knocked down.

I think that's a great question, and I think we're gonna get into some of that a little bit later on about um uh some opportunity to ask those questions.

Counselor McKinsey I think to further to uh Counselor Matson's comment it would also be helpful and I don't know how this can be determined but how old the buildings are what percentage do of buildings do we have that are 1960s or below great point I know my house is 1964 and it's got dimensional uh old growth uh all through it so um so I I think there's there's an a time there, but I think that there's some play there as well for sure.

Uh any other comments?

So I think it's um I'm gathering that council's intention is uh still in favor of staff uh investigating a deconstruction bylaw force.

Thank you again, Doctor.

And moving us right along, I think that brings us into public participation period.

Uh Carl, have we got anybody on the phone?

Mayor Tobias, we have no callers at this time.

Thank you, Carl.

Is there anybody in the room that would like to address uh counsel under the public participation period?

Mayor and council, thanks for uh the opportunity to speak.

Um I wanted to address the um code of conduct um item that's on the agenda.

And and I just want to say I I hope that council take the time to carefully review the code of conduct policy and hopefully make it a bylaw.

The current policy falls short of the requirements for personal and professional accountability that we'd find are required of registered professions in BC, such as nurses or engineers or lawyers.

Yet you guys actually get to make decisions on a broader and more serious uh scale or scope than than many lawyers or or engineers or nurses get to make.

Um on today's agenda, there's a number of suggestions.

One that I didn't see there is is to rewrite the the entire code of conduct in order to bring it into the language of a bylaw that is more concise and is separated from the complaints mechanism, which is a separate issue as as well as the um the outcome of of any complaints is is kind of a separate issue.

One of the things on on the agenda today is um uh suggesting that the public should continue to be excluded from the um of excluded from making complaints about code of conduct violations and and and that it would create a great deal of busy work for staff.

I'd suggest it's a bit more serious than busy work.

And you don't have to look very far to find other municipalities that do allow the public city of Vancouver for starters.

It doesn't necessarily mean the the opportunity is really easy or that it's wide open for abuse, but there needs to be an avenue there because your work touches on the public's lives.

And if it was not carried out competently or in good faith, the public should have a mess a method to address it.

And right now there is none.

So your code of conduct or or however you end up doing it should really let the public bring complaints forward if necessary.

There's also a suggestion on the agenda that many codes of conduct contain a moratorium contain moratorium language to cover the campaign period, and that this provision will ensure that conduct during the nomination period does not become the subject of a complaint.

That means it's a free-for-all.

I couldn't find a single one that that and didn't look at everyone in the province, but I could not find a single one that said there was no complaints could be lodged about behavior during an election period.

What I did find was that most that I reviewed identify additional responsibilities for personal behavior that counselors or people other people running for office must acknowledge and and uh and abide by during the election period.

There's also um privacy concerns that need to be respected during a complaint process, and that's there's a legal requirement to do that.

There's no doubt about that.

However, the agenda suggests that there's a decision that needs to be made about whether all reviews should be conducted behind closed doors in uh in camera.

Um that's not acting in the public interest, and I believe that council has to not only act in the public interest, but has to be seen to be acting in the public interest in order to maintain public confidence.

Along with the reasons for arriving at conclusions one way or another.

I was lucky enough to sit on a committee for a while.

And one of our jobs was to develop code of ethics, renew code of ethics conduct guidance and complaint mechanisms for a growing professional association.

And it lasted, that part of it lasted about a year.

And maybe the greatest benefit was how the awareness of pure personal accountability and the public interest was raised among those that were part of that were members, those that wanted to be members, and the public that we consulted with during that.

Everybody learned a lot, and I think it was a great byproduct.

In the end, we we realized that our modest products would benefit from the help of a consultant.

We hired one, and there are quite a few of them that deal with corporate public governance issues.

Our product was greatly improved.

It was clearer, it was more concise.

And thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

Wilson.

Mayor Tobias, just for point of clarification, if the record, maybe you can ask um name and address for this.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Reminded me just before I came up.

Doug Wilson, 291 View Royal Avenue.

Thank you, Mr.

Wilson.

Is there anybody else in chambers that would like to address council?

Seeing nobody, I think we can move uh to protective services.

And Councilor Brown, if I try to take the chair back, um then stop me.

Uh, but I'll turn the uh this portion of the agenda over to Councilor Brown for Productive Services.

Great, thank you, and welcome to the Protective Services portion of the agenda.

Uh I do have a chair's report.

First of all, I want to give kudos to Chief Hurst and his firefighters for their fast uh reaction to the fire down just down the street.

Uh and also thanks to Langford and Callwood for their assistance.

It shows the strength of the mutual aid agreements and also your ESS people.

I'm not sure who they are, but I think they helped out the uh people that are living there.

And with the area with the number of trees, the dryness, and the other buildings in close proximity.

Uh, what a great job to knock that down so quickly because it could have been a horrible disaster.

I mean, it was bad enough as it was, but thank you for that.

And I'd like to thank Mayor Tobias for appointing me to this particular committee.

I'm certainly enjoying the four committees that I'm on, and I thank you uh for the way you you got counselors' interests and considered their abilities, their knowledge and experience when appointing them to the appropriate council to committees.

And uh I'm certainly enjoying the four committees you put me on.

Thank you for that.

Uh there's no business anymore arising from previous uh minutes.

So I'd like to move on now to um Superintendent Preston for verbal.

Thank you, uh Councillor Brown, Mr.

Mayor, Council, thanks for having me.

Um yeah, as always here, I'd like to just go through some uh some basic stats about uh the the previous month here and and uh the years uh thus far.

So thus far we've had um a thousand forty-eight general occurrences from January 1st to April 30th, which is a uh 9% increase, uh about 89 files comparatively to last year at this time.

Um with that we had a 7% increase in founded occurrences.

So those that we could show that actually did occur.

Um happy to show that although there was an increase in files there uh over the last um four months, um sorry, three three and a half months, uh there was a 10% decrease in violent crime.

Property crime.

Um, we've seen it unfortunately a nine 19% increase, which we've seen uh significant property increases and thefts, and I think I articulated to you last time about the uh the shoplifting, the concerns uh the last year that we had a hundred percent increase in shoplifting over the the uh the global west shore um community.

So that has certainly caused for concern.

And to that end, of course, you know, we talked about putting vehicles, uh, more visibility, strategic placement, focusing on in certain individuals that uh are prolific, but I think it's um more so not just you know a certain prolific offender group that's that's uh the uh the culprits for this.

It's it's kind of a global crisis we're seeing here that uh there's a lot of people that are in pretty difficult positions that are choosing to uh to shoplift for obvious reasons.

Um files at the hospital or at the sort of we'll start with the casino actually.

Uh we've seen a 67% uh increase.

So put that in perspective, that's 18 files uh comparatively speaking to 2022 at the same time.

Uh so that was uh 45 times we've been to the casino this year for calls for service.

And you know, a typical uh a lot of it's due to obviously intoxication or um altercations that occur within the casino.

Uh the hospital, we've had a nine percent increase, which is uh only six files, but it's still 71 times this year.

We've been down to the hospital.

And I'm gonna go through some of the files that we actually did attend just to kind of give you perspective as to what we're attending at the hospital uh as well.

The mental health uh we've seen a 16% decrease uh in files that have uh mental health components.

So we had 64 um files this year dealing with mental health uh individuals uh suffering from mental health crisis comparative to 76 at this time uh last year.

And we dealt with uh 13 people uh suicidal individuals uh during this time frame as well this year.

Traffic stats uh for April.

We had 16 violations ticking uh violation tickets given out in uh View Royal and three also no insurance tickets.

We've been doing quite a bit of proactive uh speed enforcement on uh Admiral's Road, Eagle View, Wilfrid, and um also the Peace Act strike.

We were certainly present for that as well.

Community policing, we were at the View Royal Elementary Dare grad.

We did a I was there actually myself.

I got the awarded the bite arm for the dogs, and then the dogs uh the kids love that, so it was a great proactive community policing event.

And we got the um uh fire safety expo.

Um sorry, free safety expo.

And 900 uh kids from the school district were brought through for safety talks with uh the fire departments of bylaw, the RCMP and ICBC would so another uh another great event.

Some of the files that we had in the first half of uh May.

So we were called by the uh the view of the world fire department called us to advise if a subject of complaint was sleeping on a bus.

They tried to remove this individual, but he started to make threats against his own life and initially ran from police but was caught apprehended under the Mental Health Act.

Take him to the hospital.

Another file we had a complaint stated that someone broke into a car on uh Gills Road and that was now sleeping inside her shed.

He was arrested for breaking in her uh and possession of a prohibited taser.

Uh GPS keys and credit cards not belonging to him as well.

Uh on April 28th, we assisted Sanich police with securing a lockdown at the VGH for several hours due to high pro high priority file in Sanich.

Um residents of Atkins Ave reported a break in into his home by a relative who was diagnosed with a mental uh illness.

No charges uh were warranted, but we were able to go over there and keep the peace.

We had possession of uh stolen property at the casino, part of a fraud scheme uh that's been going on.

Uh the suspect, uh we've had this a number of times where the suspect tries selling fake gold to patrons.

Uh they buy it and then realize that it's fake and with the money.

Uh we had a fraud, lost credit card was being used.

Uh we have CC TV footage, uh, and we're it was being used at a lot of local businesses here, and we're still investigating that one.

Um, we had a 90-day uh IRP for impaired driver on Atkins Av.

The uh vehicle was all over the road at the time.

Uh we had the VGH staff calling and stating a patient is claiming that they are being followed and is in danger.

Limited details, but there may be a gang component to this, an organized crime or gang component, why they're being feeling and uh unsafe at this time.

Uh the structure fire with the uh fine fire department here last night.

We were uh there of note uh there were several homeless people staying in the unit where the fire had started.

And unfortunately, uh Wallhurst, despite best efforts, there was a cat that unfortunately uh surmised.

Uh we had a dementia patient found on Watkins Av.

We were uh able to reunite this individual who was suffering from dementia back uh with their family.

We assisted VGH with a belligerent patient who was uh discharged, refusing to leave, and we were able to give that individual a ride to the shelter.

The last uh half of April, we dealt with uh the Land or Tenancy Act, where I called to request please keep uh keeping the peace on Evelyn Heights in View Royal.

We had a disturbance between two roommates on Watkiss Way, where the male is uh has suffers from some alcoholism and was wandering around on the street, and we end up arresting this individual for being intoxicated in public.

We had casino staff call us on another occasion to report that a female was intoxicated, causing a disturbance, shoving security staff, and refusing to leave.

Members attended and located a belligerent female arrested for assault and drunk in public place and released when sober.

Um we had an assault on Island Highway where two females were in a physical altercation.

One female suspect accused the other of assaulting, and the other also of breaking a television in the home.

This in one in particular was arrested for uh assault and mischief as a result.

We an officer on patrol noticed a vehicle near the 400 block of Island Highway had the wrong plates on the vehicle, and that vehicle uh was issued a ticket for misusing their plates.

VGH called us again, reporting that a male refused to leave the hospital and all brandished a pocket knife, threatening to stab himself.

The patient suffers from significant mental health ill uh illness and was later discharged without issue.

We had another assault at the casino.

Uh two patrons arguing led to a physical fight.

One ended up with a split lip.

We had a theft of gas from the Circle K on Admiral's Road.

Um we had a check well-being of a woman lying down outside Talcott uh Road.

Um the individual was suffering from mental health uh crises, but uh not needing to be apprehended and was transported to a safe location.

And finally, we had a um uh a motor vehicle injury, a motor vehicle worse car on Admiral's Road.

The motor vehicle, uh sorry, the motorcycle bumped uh the car, was thrown off the uh the bike, minor injuries, motorcycle was traveling above speed limit, and the driver was given a no driver's license ticket.

So, again, that's just a highlight of some of the files over the last 30 days since I last uh came to see you.

Um I'll open the floor to thank you, Superintendent.

Counselor Madsen.

Does anyone have any questions?

Yes, uh thank you for presentation.

And I think I'm still owed a ride in the new electric car for an evening.

That's currently actually we lent it to uh um Richmond and Burnaby right now.

So it'll be back here in about a uh probably about a month.

But yes, I'm happy to do that.

Uh the question I did have is about the casino and intoxication hours.

Is that a a case of individuals coming to the casino intoxicated, or is it the fact that once they're there they consume too much alcohol?

And if it's the latter, have you addressed that with the casino?

Yeah, I I don't uh I don't know how old they became intoxicated.

It's time it's that's a typical one.

It's you know, it's like somebody going to a bar and they they drunk before they get into the bar kind of and then they uh they add on to their alcohol uh once they get into the bar or um so it it is difficult, and I know that the gaming the gaming branch does regulate that.

Um and they do uh generally a pr a pretty good job of it.

Just a sec, John's um just a quick question, and uh and this is something in future, it'd be nice to know each month or whatever time you come, uh how many uniform members you're you're currently sh short.

You may not know exactly the numbers.

Sure.

Yeah, I'd be happy to speak to that.

And if in fact uh the West Shore has one of the highest um occupancy rates, if you will, um, on Vancouver Island for sure, right now um we don't have a I don't have the exact number but I know out of all the attachments I'm told that we have the um the highest staffing rate on the Vancouver Island right now.

Yeah.

Yeah hi uh thanks.

Um the you mentioned a structural fire where there were uh some homeless in the in that building was that in view oil that was the one I believe that last night there yeah okay uh interesting so um how um in a broader sense um uh any any issues or concerns with respect to the homeless um um you know round parks and so forth in V oil and and the West Shore?

Um yeah, I mean every every day um we get complaints it seems uh dealing with the unhoused individuals.

Um some areas are obviously uh better than others and and these individuals typically get pushed from one area to another, uh looking uh you know, there's only limited resources available, I suppose.

And and right now we do see more in the summertime.

Um they typically a lot of them will go into the shelters at uh during the winter season, but they prefer to be outside uh in the summer season, spring summer.

Right.

Um digressing about three weeks ago, um I I was really impressed with um the the RCP's coordination with CRD parks um where um uh I don't know through social media on some weekend uh twenty two hundred uh youth were getting off buses heading up to the The Slate for a rave party and um I know you had a an i open file and was we're coordinating nicely and and the place were going up and down six mile assisting CRD uh parks so uh nice to see that happening and and the coordination between two agencies.

Thank you very much for doing that.

Great thank you.

Yeah.

Um in the summertime as uh as things warm up and it's not only the homeless uh that are coming out it's also the drag racing on the Transcanal highway starts to ramp up uh with you know excessive noise and excessive speed and so forth.

Um I are we able to get a um kind of a proactive uh lead on this and um it's usually in the early morning hours um where they're really uh and then it's not only the TCH but up and down Island Highway along the casino strip.

Uh thoughts on how um um we can proactively handle that and and uh uh discourage that activity.

Yeah, in fact actually I've seen uh it was probably three, four weeks ago Ursu did a uh uh quite a blitz on the Trans Canada Highway and I saw them every morning, early morning, dealing with exactly what you're talking about, and I suspect that they will be back out again because that seems to be uh a growing concern for sure.

Lastly, uh the bike patrol going strong this summer as well.

It's going fantastic.

I was quite jealous.

They were all out, uh, I think quite happy to be on their bikes today on a beautiful sunny day.

Counselor McKenzie, did you want to add something?

You added something to the agenda about presence in uh commercial.

Do you want to talk to the superintendent about that right now?

Or oh no, it was just um wanting to reflect the discussion that we had at the last committee of the whole where um it we were asked what we would like to see more of.

For priorities, yeah.

Yes, our priorities.

So um, yeah, nothing further on that.

Thank you.

Mayor Tobias.

Yeah, I I I had a bit of discussion with the folks at at Quality Food, and I haven't had the one at Thrifties yet, but one of the things they indicated is that they don't often call, even though somebody um is potentially even a repeat offender.

Um, that rather than kind of deal with um the issue, it's uh almost accepting it as a loss, and that's not good for business either.

I also appreciate that even though we can increase presence to try to deter speeding and shoplifting, uh, it's still gonna occur.

Um and I don't know what the right ways to do things.

For instance, I it it's difficult to go in and buy some things that were more expensive because they've simply taken them off the shelves because they were losing too much money.

But uh, what are your thoughts on that, uh, superintendent?

On on how best uh the commercial we can advise the commercial uh folks to um to deal with it.

Yeah, I mean it's it's we can only do something if we know about it.

And so, you know, if it continues to be a a huge issue, uh I mean, obviously we want them to report crime.

Um and we do encourage it.

And it also allows us to to provide, like you say, better tips on um like we'll go in there and happy to go in there and uh buy environmental design.

Sometimes we'll go in there and and help them design to hey you know put your tills here.

I mean you see some of the uh, you know, if you you go to Costco, people are checking there.

There's a reason that everybody funnels into an area.

You don't have a sprawling area.

And so again, I think some of these things people, you know, it's not their world and they don't uh they don't appreciate how making small modifications could probably assist and we have you know trained uh auxiliaries and trained members that can go in and assist them with that and then same with the visibility piece obviously um you know where we spend our time if we know that we have a shoplifting uh occurrence every day at Superstore well that's that's probably a great button but if we don't know quality foods is having the same issue you know we don't dedicate the same resource or the same you know we put it perhaps somewhere else in a school zone that um or some you know some other place where it'd be nice to have that balance and and so the only thing I can do is encourage them to to reach out to us we want to know any further questions well thank you Mr.

Thank you chief hearst I think there was something related that uh before the superintendent leaves he can help us out on your agenda counselor it was just below his report and before he goes away I want to hear to uh sorry you can get my backup okay sure yeah sorry what was uh I I didn't see it on the building okay so we were um supposed to be meeting this this week obviously on that meeting that unfortunately it'd be canceled June 9th is the next meeting on the building.

Um you know it is obviously a concern when you see some of the other headlines across the province with the dramatic increases of uh of cost for emergency buildings that I'm not sure I'm sure you've been aware of that that some of these buildings have gone up 20 million dollars in the course of three years uh by non by not building uh soon enough but I know everybody's uh seems to be uh paddling this in the right direction the same direction in terms of knowing the need and and making sure that we do our due diligence to try to find the right solution for for all communities here it's this is a ginormous uh you know cost and undertaking and we want to make sure we get it right and so having um you know, I think having a board moving forward.

I think where we're gonna run into some issues here is when we try to um please seven communities or in this particular, you know, three communities that it with with all councils.

Not everybody's going to agree on, you know, what what a building looks like, what it, you know, what it should represent, the colors, the scheme, the schematics, the location, everything else.

We know we've seen some of that already.

Of uh, and so I think we really need to zero down on a smaller group, a designated group from each council, um, to to be the voice for for their council, and then they obviously accept uh the recommendations um on behalf of uh the group, because otherwise I think we're gonna have uh a real hard time navigating through this.

It's a very unique situation having this many communities involved.

I think everybody appreciates that.

So I think there just needs to, we need to narrow the focus uh group a little bit.

Any questions?

Good morning, Mr.

Tobias, go ahead.

One of the things I think we did uh talk about at the last meeting uh with the superintendent and the other mayors and CAOs was uh uh originally I had a question, as did Callwood about the location.

Um, just saying that uh have we done due diligence now, taken a good scan around.

Uh the concern was building on greenfield, meaning that we wouldn't have to worry about interrupting operations as we're building a new thing, and there may be some cost savings or efficiencies in that.

Um satisfied that staff's done that work around there, that uh the existing location uh they can still build whilst maintaining operations, although there's gonna be some difficulty there.

So I think there was agreement that that the location that would also uh enable the study that was initially done to kick off as well.

Um there was some concern around timing.

You may have heard uh Langford was having an issue paying off the YMCA with an aggressive uh financing plan as well as funding for the RCMP building.

And uh Kim and I uh spent some time talking about the uh timeline that was provided by the initial consultant, and then and would there be a difference in the timeline for the town of Langford's financing and priority plan and how that would affect.

Right now, I don't see a great discrepancy between them, but I would like to see the town of Langford say that so we could carry on.

So our next meeting is uh is early June, and so specifically we're going to be looking at merging those timelines.

I spoke of the importance of even if it's hiring a part-time project manager uh that would help the township's interest or the municipality's plural interest in it before uh uh the developer actually comes in to run it because I would like to see engagement, it's an expensive thing, and engagement go out as soon as possible so that we can just inform the public as we go of the progress being made and hopefully a steady stream of progress and any other documents we can push.

So that was a result kind of of the last meeting and the next meeting in June, and we can uh tag team uh a bit of an update uh at that time until we get a spokesperson involved that is going to be driving it.

Yeah, the communication piece is pretty crucial.

Councilor Rogers.

Uh not on this topic, on a separate topic.

So uh I don't if anyone's if everyone's finished on this report update.

Can I splitch to something else?

Thank you.

Um I'm glad uh you hadn't left the building because um uh staff uh kindly put uh an item of correspondence on on um on our agenda specifically to ask you about it's um it was from Mr.

Hawker um who lives at uh 231 Watkins Way and uh there was an accident on Watkins Way outside their complex.

Um and uh in speaking to the RCP last night, they told us to tell the city about this as they um they were not surprised and the road conditions uh present an ex uh risk to the community, which is uh an interesting observation um uh by the officers there.

Um and this is coming down on from uh Theus Lake from Highland Road and along that uh that stretch and in the dark before they get to Burnside.

Um any any was there any particular issues or any thoughts um that the RCP may have about uh road conditions and speed along that stretch of Watkins Way.

Um yeah and I I don't know the file.

Uh you said it occurred last night.

Uh no um this was uh April 23rd.

April twenty third yeah I'm I apologize I have uh no knowledge I mean it's 24,000 calls a year so it's tough.

I don't know that particular I'm happy to look into that or have staff yeah please you know uh reach out to myself and I'll I'll funnel it down so we can get uh get some resolve to this and and and determine if there is actually a safety issue.

I I think the uh the curious curiosity would be um how many times the police have been called to uh to that road, and maybe not specifically this particular one, but uh any other instances uh if there's um some concerns or speeding or whatever that we need to be aware of and and work with staff on.

Yeah, that's an easy one.

We can have our our analyst do a GPS plotter on that for you.

That's that's easy.

I just I just need somebody to reach out to me and send me a uh request uh by email if you're I'm happy to take it from from anybody.

Uh Mr.

Campbell.

Thank you.

This is not a question, it's more of a political statement, but I know City of Burnaby, their whole municipal hall is going to be taken down.

That's aging infrastructure is a problem everywhere.

And not a um it's a big hit to to build a new detachment here.

Uh I'm really disappointed that the provincial government can spend 150 million dollars up to 30 million dollars per year to maintain the Surrey police service.

And we're not the only council that's saying what about us?

If they could divide even divided money up amongst the uh municipalities that have the RCMP it would certainly be a small help towards defray the cost.

Anyway that's not a question to you that's just a political statement from me.

There's quite a few uh communities that have echoed echoed the same sentiment there counselor yeah well thank you superintendent thank you sorry chief to hold you up there okay good afternoon, Mayor, members of council.

Always a pleasure.

Um just uh go through the monthly uh public safety report for March and April.

Just a couple of details uh under fire prevention.

So three three fires of note in the reporting period.

You're all aware of 306 View Royal Avenue, the structure fire there that led to um an enhanced and accelerated bylaw enforcement file, animal control, wildlife file.

That's being managed nicely and it's moving forward.

Uh the other fire, 96 Talcott.

Um, crews responded to a fire at about two in the morning.

The house had been lit on fire uh with the occupants in the house on the arrival.

The um the owner uh smoke alarms went off and he went out and managed to extinguish the fire, but pretty extensive damage to the home.

Um police are investigating that.

And then the fire at one hospital way on April 4th, where the two rooms were lit on fire.

Uh, RCNP attended they're investigating that as well.

Um, there were some mental health issues involved with that particular issue.

Um, just of note, uh, we did the fire department did recognize the six nursing staff that were involved in the uh detection of the fire, the firefight, and uh the evacuation of patients uh prior to our arrival, which was uh significant uh help and made a uh a significant difference in the outcome of the patients on the floor.

Without their help, uh it would have been a uh completely different event.

So good work by the nursing staff on Four South at VGH.

Um, as usual, Troy's emergency program is busy.

The new name of the building.

It just got to the point where it was getting overwhelming, and they they offered their assistance and Langford took that and it went very well.

So I'm very pleased that our that our teams are are working together as are as are the fire departments.

A couple months ago we merged the two radio programs with Callwood and View Royal, and that's going very well.

Our team's been over there working on infrastructure with Callwood to get their services up.

You'll also notice that uh our new Bile Officer gave uh a bit of an explanation into the categorization of bylaw infractions, uh low, medium, and high priority, and just gave you a bit of a breakdown on on where we sit right now in the first couple of months, showing that about 85% of our investigations are classified as low priority, 10% were medium, and 5% were high priority.

And then Brad did give a a case example of what a what a high priority file is versus a a low priority file.

Numbers are are pretty much the same as they were last year.

Brad and Laura are working hard to actually reduce the number of files as opposed to uh see an increase.

So they're they're trying to take a proactive approach and get more voluntary compliance, and that seems to be working very well.

Um just a brief just to give you guys a brief summary of last night's um event.

Um 339 Island Highway, the Kindersley apartments.

It's a four-unit fourplex.

Uh the fire started in the lower unit um of the fourplex in the occupied building.

There were people uh beside and above the fire.

The initial reports were um the apartment was on fire with occupants, several occupants trapped in the building.

On arrival, uh we were informed that the people had self-extricated themselves out of the building.

Uh crews went into um a quick attack offensive mode where they they didn't take a hydrant, they went straight in.

Uh unfortunately, the power line severed and landed on the truck and on the members, so that hampered their efforts initially.

But they managed to work through that, knock the fire down quickly, and then did a search and rescue operation of the floors above the fire.

Obviously, assistance from Calwood and Langford was immediate, and our partners with the RCMP, the four ambulances supervisor.

We had a bit of a challenge.

Hydro was almost two hours.

No firefighter injuries.

Two civilians went to hospital with smoke inhalation, and as uh the superintendent alluded, we did lose uh an animal in the um in the fire.

Crews tried valiantly for about a half an hour doing CPR on the on the pet to try and resuscitate the animal, but unfortunately it was unsuccessful.

I'm meeting with um that owner tonight at seven o'clock.

Um there's four displaced people from that fire.

They've been um all put up in accommodations, and there's no insurance in any of the suites.

So we're working with the property management company to see what options we have for these people.

Right now, the building is unlivable and the suite down below is is damaged, probably beyond repair.

So it's it is the site of a redevelopment, so I'm not quite sure what the property owners are going to do uh with the the fire.

Uh of note, um, we did receive some video uh pre-arrival uh video from a neighbor showing the extent of the fire prior to the 911 call.

The fire was significantly underway prior to fire being called.

There was a comment in the video that, you know, why is it taking the fire department so long?

It's been 10 minutes.

They're right next door.

The actual response time to the fire was just over three minutes, which would seem excessive because we are next door.

It should be noted we were tied up dealing with another opiate overdose in the community at a regular residence with a regular repeat offender.

So crews were tied up on that call when the house fire call came in, and that's what facilitated the the three minute delay in getting to the fire.

So I just want to make sure we're we're clear that you know there it wasn't a significant delay, but there was a delay because the crews were tied up dealing with the medical issue and and I've mentioned to you guys before the opiate issue is is is strong and and going quite strong in V Royal still as it is everywhere else in the province.

We're not immune to the issue in View Royal.

Statistically we're pretty much on par.

We're actually a little bit under last year for calls for service.

Yeah, no, everything is pretty pretty much on par.

So I'm I'm more than happy to uh answer any questions, yeah.

Go ahead, Counselor Madsen.

Yeah.

Just something I was curious about.

Thanks, thanks, Chief.

Um the I think the inspector superintendent said there were uh homeless people in in the building.

And so what I don't understand is did they live there or if they're homeless, they shouldn't have been in the building.

But I'm just yeah.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what the living arrangements could be guests of uh of residents or four registered um people living and paying rent, but there could have been other people uh living.

Sorry, thank you.

It is it it is an address that is known to us.

We have attended that that property before for a series and multitude of different issues.

Counselor rogerson okay counselor lemon then counselor rogers my question's been answered but i i just want to say thank you Paul keep once again you guys are heroic the the crews were brave last night it was a it was a heavy volume of fire and with the reports of occupants and then of course the animal uh the crews going above the fire to search was commendable so I was pleased with the uh with the outcome and that's that speaks to the the fact that we are staffed at nighttime if if that fire had been left to burn 10 minutes, 15 minutes, the outcome would have been completely different.

So that quick response from our crews and the Callwood Langford crews is is key to um to success.

At the end of the day, we ended up with uh 27 firefighters and four chief officers at the fire.

So a squamo was on standby and we had an available engine in Langford and Callwood to look after the rest of the district.

So a good outcome all around.

Council Rogers.

Yeah, uh again, can congratulations and and many thanks to all for the coordination.

And it's an interesting um uh reality situation where you're you're on another call yet with another overdose, and you know that's uh a story of a continuing story.

Um on a on a good news, um, I was um at uh the West Shore Parks Rec for uh the emergency services um overall educational display fair that was going on remarkable, absolutely remarkable.

Vivo is so well represented and in the four different categories.

Um it was nice to see all the volunteers there pitching in and um uh really engaging nicely with with the public and educating everybody.

So uh congratulations um and again the usual um uh enthusiasm uh and I know particularly the ham radio section there there uh and their trailer that you have there.

It's just great.

Thank you very much.

And and Troy informed me, reminded me that we have uh an emergency management pro um event on seven o'clock June the first at the fire hall.

So I appreciate Troy reminding me.

Yes.

Um I just yeah, the that would believe that was the first gathering, the emergency group has had since 2019.

Just they had their 2019 event, and then of course COVID shut everything down.

And before I forget, Counselor, I just wanted to mention um June 10th is our annual um fire department open house, our public open house, and that's the the day that we sort of showcase what we do and how we do it.

And of course, all the Marine Council are more than uh welcome to attend.

And and it's a pretty good turnout.

It's you know it's anywhere from 700 to a thousand people come through the building and lots of displays.

So that's the the day where the fire department gets to show what they do.

Yeah, I could I couldn't even get to talk to the firefighters there because there were so many kids and stuff.

We were wandering through the truck in the on the weekend.

That was great.

It's good to hear that the ESS was able to help Old Langford because there's a lot of people in that building that are hurting.

Thank you very much for that.

A other questions?

Uh Councilor Brown, just uh noting the time.

What I'd re recommend we do is have a motion to recess now.

Uh Don just asking you if uh are all your folks available at this time for the council meeting that we'll have to move into.

At this point, I'm not seeing our auditor online.

I expect him momentarily, but I do have a pre I can present the financial statements first, and his report follows mine, so there's a bit of a a time lag in there.

Okay, then uh yeah, that's what I'd recommend we do, and then we run from now until we'd recess from this meeting, move to the council meeting, and then come back after something.

We probably quickly wrap up this section, I think.

Uh we've got a building department report right after this one.

So well, we got the building inspection report just to be received.

So you got a could I have a mover for that?

The building.

So move by Council Rogers, second by Counselor Lemon.

Uh all in favor.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Pleasure as always.

And then maybe I'll steal it before it goes to you, Councilor Lemon for Arts, and uh uh request a motion to recess.

Um, and then we can pick the agenda up with you when we come back from supper.

Can I have a uh motion to recess uh moved and seconded by council McKenzie?

All in favor, none opposed.

Thank you, Kim.

I'd like to uh call the meeting of the committee of the whole for the 9th of May 2023 back to order after our break uh for the special council meeting and a dinner break.

And I think where we left off is uh councillor Lemon uh with arts and culture.

Counselor Lemon, please.

Thank you, Mary Tobias.

I'm just loading up here.

Uh okay, um arts and culture committee.

Um I have a brief brief chair's report, um, and uh starting with library.

Um next week Victoria Council is gonna get a first look at the feasibility report uh for a new or a renewed um central branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library System.

Um this report's been in the works for a year.

Um and uh yeah, we will it will it will be public after Victoria has seen it, and then we will likely have an opportunity to see it.

The library board, which I'm on, is going to be on a retreat this weekend, this Saturday, where we're going to be holding facilitated discussions about the regional service plan and the next version of the strategic plan.

Councillor Rogers and Brown and I attended the launch party of the WandaFuca Performing Arts Society last month, a couple weeks ago.

Lovely events.

Society's been working behind the scene for years on developing plans for a 350-seat performing arts theater with uh side workshop rooms, lots lots of lots of extra artsy space.

Um uh Juna Judith Cullington, who is the president of the society, will be coming to uh the next committee of the whole meeting, I I believe, um, to present to us and tell us more about this.

Um the the event was uh there was there was lots of entertainment at this event, lots of West Shore entertainment, including and who knew that the West Shore has a circus school.

Um that there is a circus school and there were circus performers there doing lots of tall stuff and twirly twirly stuff.

And uh so that's it for my committees.

Uh, but I'll just give a um a mention of the best in bloom competition.

Um I hope my colleagues are all talking it up so we can get some more.

May is a beautiful month here, and uh there's lots of purples out, a lot of lilacs and rosemary and bluebells and Oregon grape and um so nominate the gardens you see that you like and um encourage your neighbors and your friends to do so.

Uh we we're taking nominations for another week and a bit, and uh then we're we're gonna be looking to see who gets the prizes.

And I think that's it for me, and I think that's it for my committee.

If there's any questions, any interests, any counselor Brown.

That was a great event.

I got to meet the two tallest women in the West Shore and got my picture taken with them multiple times.

Saw that, saw that.

Uh thank you, Councillor Lemon.

I had um a couple of questions.

I'll leave the controversial one until last.

Um uh the first one is um about the retreat.

I just notice, and I can't help but notice when I go through other communities, um they've got an outlet or some presence of the Greater Victoria Public Library, and we do not.

And uh I wouldn't mind if you brought that up in the retreat, I've noticed.

And uh while we're in that situation of trying to offset a reading center and a lack of presence for the library here, isn't there some freaking synergies that we can come up with that satisfies both of our investment um with the library?

Um so if you could bring that up, that would be excellent.

I would be delighted, and I will tell you, I I uh I have actually had a side discussion already with the CEO about our potential interest um and you know taking a look at possibilities I think it's something for to be discussed with staff to see you know um well you know the dollar cents and and uh whether whether it's even possible with with whether you know the dollars we contribute downtown could be shifted into some bricks and mortar here um but I will I'm happy happily bring that up there.

So thank you for that.

Was that the controversial one?

No, no, that that that one's coming.

But I I mean it leads into that as well in that uh one of those things that council were divided on was the reading center.

Um and I think you know one of those things that I would like, because it will come back to us, is um something that we could think about.

A scaled I don't like sometimes just saying no, we're gonna be doing a complete reverse of of opinion, but I think it would be most appropriate if council went out and set some pretty clear expectations about um we had stated that we would like them to go and seek other sources of funding.

I don't think that has happened in the past so much, that the municipality was the main um conduit.

And I don't think couldn't be wrong, and I don't want to put words in other counselors' mouths, but uh I think it was a consistent high amount or the highest amount.

That was what uh I think challenged some of counselors to uh invest in this.

So I I think if it was a a medium ask every year of an operational loan to buy new books or something like that, but right now the council provides all of that money, the greater public uh greater Victoria Public Library, uh, to the tune of I think about a quarter million dollars plus a year, just in quick figures, plus thirty thousand dollars uh this year uh for for the reading center, and they're not talking to each other.

Uh what I'd like uh you know to propose perhaps in our next council meeting, or if you suggest another opportunity here is something like we gave you $30,000 this year, where we've requested you go out and seek other forms of funding.

Next year it might be $15,000.

That's what you can bank on from council, and perhaps not more, because I don't think there's any motivation there for them to seek grants anywhere else at this point.

And I think we're at that point where we're probably can't um afford to do both and still expect uh our residents to do a a tax break.

Somebody was chatting with me the other day about you know it would be really nice if we had uh a plan like other municipalities to do to offset children taking the bus.

I think at 13 um you know the the provincial program goes away and it's up to the municipality if they want to fund uh children riding the bus from 15 until graduation uh or in my case I did two graduations so it was a little bit longer but you know it's something there are other things that are on people's minds to spend money on and could we not come up as a council with a clear and fair recommendation of a tiered either we get Victoria Library and the Reading Center together on the same page for something uh or we make it very clear that due to the duplication of service and where we're sitting right now that we need a plan that we can put together that will uh keep the ask reasonable but yeah just for your your thoughts and perhaps council's comment.

Yeah I think I think that's not unreasonable.

Um I I suspect they're at a bit of a loss of where to go who to seek out and how.

But uh yeah taking that on board and and I'll actually I'll have a discussion with them too.

Um counselor Manson yeah maybe you could encourage the library board by suggesting that we will take their next you know thirty thousand dollar increase and ask from our municipality and give it to the reading center and it would probably be a better use of funds thank you counselor rogers I feel the opposite um so my my question actually is um uh of of interest uh with the city of Victoria as they're moving ahead with the the new downtown branch and and what that entails um and and I cannot remember um you will committed to a portion of that capital uh investment.

And I I can't remember.

Is it four percent?

Four percent, four percent.

Okay.

So would that be four percent of the Victoria's um estimated costs?

So when when it becomes available, we should be paying careful attention to that additional.

Yeah, I should I well expense.

Yeah, I should think so.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm guessing staff are are nodding, so yes.

We're gonna either a police building or a new library.

What which which what do we do?

Thank you.

Two ends of the spectrum.

Councilor Matson.

One of the things I'm not sure about, I mean, we had our knickers on a knot way back when because Lankford forced us to join the library.

So we we chose to join the Greater Victoria Library rather than WandaFuca Rec Center.

So I mean it makes absolutely no sense that we're still in the Greater Victoria Library when we should be in or the library the library in Victoria when we should be with Juan de Fuca Library.

I'm just wondering if there's a way we can just take our funds and move them into the uh Guan de Fuca Rec library.

Staff stuff, is that feasible?

Well that's not something we've explored, but I think it is feasible.

Okay.

Okay.

Just further than I'd like the city of Victoria uh, as with everything they do, is going to be quite grandiose in terms of uh a building, and I don't think we should be stuck with four percent when very few of our residents ever get to the lab library.

A new building is is you know one of the options, but the more likely scenario is a an enhanced current um venue.

Simply bec simply because of location logistics.

My last facetious point of the evening is perhaps they can look for the provincial government with all that empty office space now that people are only working one day a week.

That's true.

In that building.